We’ve a real treat today as historical romance writer Fil Reid shares her very special writing space. Over to you, Fil …
Thank you very much for inviting me on to your blog. I’m very excited to join you and your readers. Speaking personally, one of the things that fascinates me is finding out how other writers go about their work and where they do it. So, I am pleased to share with you today how I write my books, which are historical romance in the main.
For a start, my writing cave isn’t in a house, as I don’t live in one. I live in a type of canal boat that’s called a widebeam. It looks much like a narrowboat from the side, but is twice as wide – rather like living in a floating apartment. We’re eleven feet across and just under seventy feet long, and have all mod cons, including a huge built-in generator and a battery bank that enables us to seamlessly transfer to battery power if there’s a power cut. We’re in a marina, so most of the time we’re on shore power, though. This means my writing never gets interrupted by lack of electricity.
If we take our boat out onto the cut, our engine will charge our battery bank as we travel along, and we can use the generator for a top up if we need to. The only thing I don’t have all the time when we’re out is the internet and mobile phone coverage, as some areas are in blackspots. But I love being moored in some quiet spot with no one about but the swans and moorhens we can see floating past our windows and a few sheep or cows in neighbouring fields. It’s very peaceful and conducive to writing, and the nice thing is we can keep changing our view whenever we feel like it. When we first had the boat we went down to Bath with it (about an 80 mile journey as the canal wiggles about a lot). A month to get there and a month to get back! Not something you can hurry, rather like writing.
We have two bedrooms on board, and I could use one of them as a study, but I’ve got used to writing in the main saloon of the boat, which is where our logburner is, and I like the sociability of being able to chat to my husband every so often. He’s my chief editor and walking encyclopaedia – there’s nothing he doesn’t know and is particularly good at telling me what birds are around both when and where and what they sound like. My desk is in a corner near the back of the boat, which is also the way we come in and out so feels like the front. I have a built in desk backed by a useful set of shelves on which I keep my reference books. One of the problems of living on a boat is finding room for books, and we do have a lot stored in one of our two garages in damp-proof boxes. I tend to do my pleasure reading on my kindle as that doesn’t take up valuable shelf room.
Despite my lack of space, or perhaps because of it, I’m quite a messy writer. I accumulate piles of notes on the desk beside me, and in storage boxes underneath. Before taking a photo of my workspace, I had to tidy it a bit lot! I tend to wear noise cancelling headphones while I work, even if I’m sitting in silence. I have asperger’s syndrome, which gives me a liking for things that are familiar – like the headphones. Plus, I don’t like extraneous noises, so I don’t even listen to music. I don’t like to write without my headphones.
I’ve been writing all my life, on and off, since I was five years old when my parents gave me a Petite Children’s Typewriter for my birthday. But work and family got in the way, so, until we returned to England from France, where we lived for ten years, my writing was only sporadic. It’s still sporadic nowadays, due to some health issues, but I’m more driven than I ever used to be. I think success has spurred me on.
I won the Dragonblade Publishing Write Stuff competition back in 2021 for which the first prize was a three-book publishing deal. The first three books in my Guinevere series came out between January and May 2022, and Dragonblade have just taken on the next three in the series, as well as the regency romance series that I’m currently working on.
Read on for more information about Fil, linky things and where to buy her books:
website
https://www.facebook.com/filreidauthor
The Guinevere Series (books 1 – 6)
When young librarian Gwen goes to scatter her father’s ashes on Glastonbury Tor, she’s kidnapped back to the post-Roman Dark Ages of King Arthur by none other than Merlin. To her dismay, he insists she’s the one with the power to help Prince Arthur become the king of legend.
Of course, Gwen doesn’t want to stay, but before she can escape the hilltop fortress of Din Cadan (South Cadbury Castle), news comes that Arthur’s father is dying in far off Viroconium (Wroxeter). Arthur heads up there to wrest the kingship of Dumnonia from his older brother’s acquisitive hands, taking Gwen with him. While she’s in the old Roman town, by mistake she helps set in motion two of the major threads of Arthurian legend. The road to Arthur’s doom seems as though it might already be set in stone.
At first, Gwen is a pawn in the hands of powerful men, but as the books unfold, she begins to take on the role Merlin predicts for her and becomes the strong warrior queen Britain needs, although she still has the sense to stay silent when required. Difficult for a girl raised in the twenty-first century.
This is a series that takes the oldest and sometimes the most obscure of the legends and twists them into a believable history of Arthur told through the eyes of his queen. There are battles, of course, but it’s very much about Gwen and Arthur’s changing relationship over the twenty years of their marriage, and the enormous pressures brought to bear on it.
Of course, there’s an element of magic involved, as how else could you tell some of the major elements of Arthur’s story? All the places used in the books exist, so if you want to, you can go and visit them for yourself.
Buying links for first three books –
Guinevere: The Dragon Ring
Guinevere: The Bear’s Heart
Guinevere: The Sword
Books four, five and six have no date for publication as yet, but it will be soon.
Guinevere: Warrior Queen
Guinevere: The Quest for Excalibur
Guinevere: The Road to Avalon
Huge thanks, Fil. I’ve loved hearing about your floating writing space and your books. If you want to hear more from Fil, she has an article in next month’s The Historical Times:
And Fil has also just been announced as a finalist in the Oklahoma Heart Awards:
Thanks so much for guesting, Fil!
Love,
Georgia x
